Category: Outdoor Lighting

Do’s And Don’ts For Outdoor Lighting

It’s not unusual for a homeowner to stroll down the lighting aisle of their nearest home improvement center and begin grabbing light fixtures as they come to them. Sadly, there are many different kinds of landscaping lights and you’ll want to be more selective when purchasing them and choosing the type that you’re going to use. You’ll want bright lights for walkways and you’ll want something more subtle in some of the other areas of your yard.

When you correctly place your lighting, you’ll not only set the mood, you’ll light the way so that no one is injured on the path to your home. While you’ll want to consider hiring a professional, you can still choose and install the lights yourself if you prefer.

Outdoor Lighting Do’s

Prior to installing landscape lighting in and around pathways through your yard and other landscaped areas, you’ll want to focus on your house itself. Is it well lit? You’ll want to incorporate the right kind of outdoor lighting fixtures that will focus on the beauty of your home. You’ll want to keep your home safe and secure and ensure that it’s well lit so that you can safely get to and from your house after dark. You may also wish to focus on architectural features of your home.

Consider multiple options such as spotlights that take different angles toward the garden, front door, and a relaxing area. Consider staggering some of the lights rather than grouping several in a small area. This will give more detail and effect to the yard without drawing too much attention.

Consider pathways and walk areas first and foremost. This way no one has to be injured. Focus on lighting that enhances the beauty of your yard.

Outdoor Lighting Don’ts

Avoid placing lighting in a straight line. That is simply too boring. Instead, be creative with where you place your lighting and focus on making it shine on the pathway. Stagger the lights and remember that if you have a second story of your home you should illuminate that as well. Consider overhangs and peaks and focus on other architectural features such as columns, overhangs and the like. This will give your lawn and yard an ambient glow that looks inviting. You can literally set the mood by choosing where to place your lights.

Don’t forget any small areas of your home that are in corners and dark. These should be well lit. That can enhance the safety of your home so that intruders can’t hide there. Your outdoor lighting can give your home more security and safety as well as lend an ambiance that is unsurpassed to your home and yard. Security should be an important feature that you consider when choosing your lighting. You’ll want to avoid any areas that can be used as hiding places and that can cause injuries to you, your family or guests.

Remember, there are many lighting specialists that can help you to design and determine how to offer your home an extra measure of security and light the way. They can help you to find the exact types of lighting that you’re looking for. In many cases, they have a variety of options that are readily available to help you. You have many great options and choices and can set the mood for your yard by picking and choosing what will work best for your needs.

If you wish to learn more in regards to outdoor lighting, you can enhance your home’s exterior by setting an appointment with an outdoor lighting company in Houston. we are waiting to give you our personalized insight.

Enhance the Home With Outdoor Lights

Want to make your home look bright, exciting and inviting on the outside? If so, you should consider adding more lighting fixtures to the home’s exterior. You may quickly see such a significant difference the right lights can make when they are installed. There are professional companies providing outdoor lighting fixtures to homeowners who want to improve the overall look and feel of their home from the outside.

Create a Vibrant and Comfortable Oasis

You may want the space outside of your home to look its best at all times. It is the one place you may visit when you want pure serenity and peace. If you are looking for a way to enhance the different features your home’s exterior already has, lighting is the way to do it. Instead of going with traditional lighting fixtures that many other people on the block may have, you could have systems designed specifically to meet your needs.

There are plenty of fixtures to choose from. You could choose to have something casual installed outside of your home. However, if you are looking for more dramatic lighting, there are plenty of brighter and bolder options available as well. The new lights would instantly illuminate the outside of your home.

Try Out Different Lighting Fixtures

The professionals may be able to install assorted fixtures outside of your home. Some of the most common fixtures homeowners like to have for their home’s exterior include deck, patio, pool and walkway lighting.

If you are looking for even more than just these options, consider talking to the professionals about the lighting options they have to offer. A professional lighting designer could discuss ideas with you and help you select the perfect fixtures for your property.

When you are depending on a company to provide lights that will illuminate the home and make your property’s exterior look even better, it is important to choose a company you can rely on and trust. The right company has experience installing lights and would have no problem supplying you with a number of convenient and useful options.

The right company provides skilled and trained designers who have experience installing the right outdoor lighting fixtures. The professional residential outdoor lighting in Houston at Robert Huff Illumination may offer demonstrations to give you an idea of what you can expect before the installation process begins. If you want to work with caring and helpful individuals who can quickly make your home look more inviting from the outside on in, contact the residential light designers or call today. They can consult with you right away to get this process started.

Let Your Business Shine

Robert Huff Outdoor Lighting provides commercial outdoor lighting in Houston for various industries. We are a trusted company providing solutions to hotels, restaurants, B&Bs, and more and have solutions that meet the unique needs of your business. Our solutions will illuminate your outdoor spaces in a completely different way and draw in customers like never before.

If you would like to see how your hospitality lighting would look like before it is actually installed, we have a solution for that. We offer complimentary demonstrations that provide a sneak preview of what your business could look like. We will work with you to develop a custom plan for your lighting matching your budget and needs and then we will put up a display for you to see. Any adjustments that need to be made are completed on the spot to ensure that you are satisfied.

Types of Hospitality Lighting

Landscape Lighting

Architectural Lighting

Security Lighting

Festive String Lighting

Spotlights

Patio and Deck Lighting

Pathway Lighting

Energy Efficient LED Lighting

We provide hospitality lighting that illuminates your space without depleting your funds, thanks to the energy-efficient LED lighting we use. If you would like to brighten your outdoor spaces in a cost-effective way, this is the ideal opportunity for you. LED lighting is completely customizable. With options to adjust tones, lower intensities, change colors, and much more. To learn more enquire about our remote lighting controls.

If you currently have commercial outdoor lighting around your business, we can upgrade it without having to replace the fixtures completely. Our LED retrofit kits work with almost all lighting solutions available in the market, meaning that we can enhance what you have already and help you enjoy further savings on commercial outdoor lighting.

Improving the Hospitability of the Hospitality Industry

Our specialty is the provision of outdoor lighting for the hospitality industry. If you have a restaurant, hotel, event center, or any such-like establishment, we can provide the best lighting to ensure that your guests are comfortable and cozy. Add romance to an outdoor sitting area or accentuate your landscaping. Whatever your preference may be, Robert Huff Outdoor Lighting will make it shine.

Get Your Free No Obligation Quote

Contact us today or call today to schedule a complimentary quote with an expert in commercial outdoor lighting in Houston. We will visit your property to assess your needs physically. Together, we will come up with the best lighting scheme for your business and ensure that you enjoy years of illuminated enjoyment.

How To Choose the Best Style Of Landscape Lighting Design

It is very important to choose an outdoor lighting design that has the right look and feel for your outdoor area. Commercial roofing contractors may also be able to assist you to ensure your lighting works with your property. Each yard is different. There is no such thing as a template design that you can just pick up and apply to your individual setting. If your property and home have a central theme (like grand, understated, classic, etc.) then that is something that you will want to enhance with your outdoor lighting. However, the central theme is not the only thing that goes into the design; there are numerous different themes, and many different professional and person styles that can address the various themes.

Best Approach

We all have our own unique sensibilities and preferences so there is no “best approach.” The perfect landscape lighting design for you will be very personal; it makes use of a combination of different outdoor lighting design strategies and techniques – some of them being complex, while others are more simple.

Typically spotlights will be used for highlighting some of your home’s key architectural features. Wider beam spreads of 60 degrees (like LED MR16 lamps) should be used for wide coverage of facades and walls. These spotlights are also perfect for showcasing specimen plants or tree that you want to highlight. Accent lights also draw attention to objects that are illuminated. The narrower that the spot is, the more attention that will be drawn. This isn’t always a good thing since wider beams have a tendency to have a more natural look. Good outdoor lighting will draw the eye to important parts of your architecture and property.

Minimalist Approach

Enough outdoor lighting is provided by this style to reveal the property and home, but not too much illumination to result in a dramatic effect. A true minimalist design, in fact, is understated and natural and might have a tendency towards romantic or mysterious. When a minimalist style gets taken too far it might give the property a spooky appearance.

You can achieve minimalist lighting through placing only a minimal amount of lighting on your house – just enough to make sure there is a safe passage to the entrances. Certain plants or trees can be light, and be done predominantly using backlighting, silhouetting and downlighting.

Statement Approach

With this particular approach, more dramatic and bolder lighting is used for creating a statement. If you happen to be particularly proud of your landscape or home and would like it to be noticed by your neighbors, then you will want to choose statement lighting. It uses floodlights and spotlights that can be especially bright, with coverage that is wider than usual. It can also be narrowly focused on certain objects in your landscaping. Although it tends to be bright and bold when it is well-designed statement lighting can still be quite beautiful.

Symmetrical Approach

One of the core principals of design is symmetry. It is a condition where there is either two objects or group of objects on both sides of a dividing line that are equivalent or similar. The human eye is drawn to symmetry. This can be the symmetry of the eyes on columns on a building or eyes on a human face. Whatever it happens to be, when it comes to symmetry humans have positive emotional responses to it. That is why when lighting designers or commercial roofing contractors see symmetry on a building or landscape, they want the features to be illuminated so that the symmetry is revealed. That doesn’t necessarily mean that the lighting has to be exactly the same on every symmetrical component. However, at the very least, it should honor the existing symmetry. Also, from a macro standpoint, the designer will want to stand back to take a look at the whole property; the scene that is lit should have some equivalence from top to bottom and left to right that can be perceived.

Safety Approach

If you just want to provide security and safety, then you should focus on all of the areas that human will be navigating. Using wider downlights and floodlights (which include using solar motion-activated lights) it will provide you with the most safety at the least expensive cost.

Differences in LED Colors and Different Uses

What is being referred to when you say color temperature lighting is the tone of “white” light which is emitted from a source of light.

One simple way of looking at this is by considering the various shades that in its life a white T-shirt may go through. If you wash a white T-shirt with your dark blues it may seem to be white on its own, however, if you place it next to a new white T-shirt, it may seem slightly blue. If you wear a T-shirt for a long time, then when it is placed next to a new one, you can see how yellow the old one looks. White light will also look quite different when two sources that are different with two color temperatures that are different are placed side by side.

So that you are able to tell the difference between the various shades of white, they label artificial light sources with a color temperature which is tungsten and incandescent, or with a CCT (correlated color temperature) which is basically everything else. The way that they measure both CCT and color temperature is in degrees Kelvin, procured from “blackbody radiation”

To put it simply, as radiation is absorbed by an idealized “blackbody radiation”, it will glow different colors. It is extremely orangish-yellowish in color when at a 2000K temperature. As the temperature is increased, the color changes to yellow, then yellowish-white, then white, and finally a bluish white.

So in the residential outdoor lighting, traditionally the color white has been classified as cool white or warm white, this depends on its CCT. When there were more limitations on lighting sources and an item which was not available commercially was LED lighting, what was known as “warm white” was halogen, fluorescent, and incandescent lights with 2700K CCT or with 3000K CCT. What was considered “neutral” was fluorescents with a 3500K CCT and sources with a 4100K CT and above was considered to be “cool white”.

This has been changed by LEDs. When they initially became commercially viable in “white”, LEDs were not as expensive if they were in the bluer spectrum, this is why most of the earlier “white” light sources tended to favor a 6000K CCT or above. Due to this, we can now observe manufacturers that call 5000K neutral, I have even seen that some refer to a 4000K as “warm white”.

That being said, to LED buyers the most important piece of advice I can give is to inquire as to what a lamp or a fixture´s correlated color temperature is prior to purchasing it, not if the color temperature is “cool” or “warm”.

It is also important to keep in mind that there is a chromaticity range to correlated color temperatures. Without delving into the scientific details, what this means to an installer and end user is that not every CCT lamp of 2700K will look the same. So to avoid any problems, it is smart that you do not mix and match manufacturers unless you have already tried their products together.

The way that light makes space feel is why CCT is so very important.

The ranges of candle light are from 1500-2000L to most people this feeling is a romantic one. This is why hotels, restaurants, and homeowners who are seeking a cozy feeling may want to go with color temperatures which are 2400-2700K. Transitional spaces in between cozy areas to more functional ones, for example, hallways, may be best lighted with color temperatures between the ranges of 3000-3500K.

Warm, colors in art, furniture as well as other objects in an area are also drawn out with warm CCTs. This is why designers tend to recommend 2700-3000K for those looking to highlight the yellows and reds in the wood grain of their flooring.

However, on the other hand, I have observed quite a few industrial and commercial facilities which seem to lean toward sources of 4000-5000K because this light is what matches daylight the closest, therefore they feel as if the space has more of a business focused and productive “feel” to it.

When it comes to cooler light, the other advantage is that it is often perceived by people as being “brighter” or as producing more light than sources with color temperatures that are warmer. Due to this increase in perceived light, for some businesses shifting to color temperatures that are cooler may also provide an energy-saving effect, as they are actually able to use less light than would be used with CCT sources that are warmer.

When it comes to residential outdoor lighting in Houston, there are both pros and cons to cool and warm color temperatures. The crucial point here is to understand the environment in which the lights are being put into.

Warm color may come across as “not being bright enough” if they are placed in areas where people want to work under a crisp white light. In areas where daylight which is naturally cool-colored enters from skylights or windows, warm colors usually come across more pink or yellow, this may cause people to believe that the lights are not properly working.

What could be a potential downside to opting for cool colors is that many people view it as being “sterile” or “institutional”. Some people may not be happy if you change from a color that is warm to one that is white as they may believe it to be “too bright”, even if the output of light is measured the same or slightly decreases.

The key to choosing the perfect color temperature is evaluating your environmental needs.

Make sure to inform the supplier of the kind of environment or the kind of ambiance you are seeking to create in the area. Although if you are planning on changing from a certain light source to another, for example, fluorescent to LED, or on switching the CCT, I highly recommend that you entire rooms be finished at the same time. Much like the T-shirt analogy, if people cannot see two CCT light sources that are different near each other, it is much more difficult to notice a difference.

Call or contact Robert Huff Illumination today to learn about color temperature and how it can positively affect the look of your backyard lighting project! Or you visit here to get a better view of the services we are able to provide.